Not having a map or guide of some kind was definately more exciting lol. Especially in the halfling starting capital where you had two exits from town the safe exit and then the one that leads to the level 40+ area with the skeletons who come charging at you shortly after coming into the zone X.x
A little twisted maybe, but it sure made you pay attention to your surroundings more.
I can just imagine it now XD :
Hello, my name is Frodo McAssBlaster and this is Jackass! -runs into +40 zone-
LOL i can also imagine people now hearing TRAIN TO ZONE! and no one leaving but sitting and waiting to see the train >.<
I kind of miss that lol even though it was a pain in the butt.
Another one: Old content staying viable for years even when new content is released. Something that is missing from basically every modern progression based MMO.
What EQ did right, and what would probably never be done again, because if EQ was released now, rabid fans would whine to no end on their forums and flock to random sites in a vain attempt to shut it down. People would not accept EXP loss on death anymore, most dislike the idea of not being able to teleport to their destination in seconds instead of having to ask a friendly druid or wizard for a port.
Players now a days would not be able to go days or weeks without leveling and only seeing the slightest bit of movement on their exp bar for a night of grouping in assassin/supplier or kings room. Having to stare at a spellbook to regain mana, the list goes on and on. But seriously, what EQ had back then, was what made it great and had a massive amount of depth.
No game released now will have what EQ had, because the instant gratification simply wasn't there. No game will force you to turn up your speakers while afk just in case a Sand Giant or Ulthork wanders by and aggroes you while your peeing or meditating. No game will require you to ask the local noobs to buy supplies for you, because a troll isn't allowed to buy food near Kaladim or Kelethin.
People have lost their ability to sit on a boat while their journey takes them through three zones. Meeting people on the docks, the ship and then grouping up to search out some random dungeon one of them mentioned when the boat finally arrives at the other side. People are in such a rush to the end-game, they forget the rest of the game, and wonder why the journey to end-game was filled with, well...filler.
EQ was a tremendous amount of fun, and there are reasons why they called it Evercrack. You lived inside their breathing world.
To right man. In EQ getting to the level cap WAS the game.
I recently start playing EQ Classic, only Ruins of Kunark available server, and it has been such a blast I was really surprised. Totally addicted to the game again, and it’s got nothing to do with nostalgia, it’s all due to the fun this games gives me. Here’s why EQ Classic is so damn great and what over MMOs are missing in my humble opinion.
1- Roleplay. Nowadays, roleplay in MMO is housing, clothing and some emotes. In EQ roleplay was from character creation, where your choices had a big impact on who your character would be and how he would progress: good or evil race/class modifying your access to the world, religion that would further modify your character in the world, including starting city or equipment. Once in game, equipment was clearly separated by race-type (big, medium, and small) and doing quest in the dwarf city would give you small races equipment, no matter your race. Lots of monsters were linked to a faction and killing a type of monster had consequences. Quest required you to TALK to the NPC by writing key sentences, not push “next” button. When a monster casted Blind on you your screen would turn black, leaving you literally blind to what was happening, alcohol would affect your stats but also game appearance, charm, night vision different by race, and so on. Roleplay was not an option through some tools given to you, it was fully part of the world design with big consequences on your character. It involved you in the game world.
2-Races and Classes. Great variety of classes and races with starting stats that mattered. Where you decided to put your points during character creation would have a big impact on your character’s life, and could not be erased by equipment easily. Then, you had the all experience rate system that would balance class and races. You decide to roll an Ogre because they have the best stat and a stun resistance? Ok, but you will xp much slower than another race. Warrior gets no spell or life-saving skill like the Paladin or Shadowknight? True, but you don’t have an xp penalty. There was balance. Each class had a role and a different gameplay, with depth to it. Mezzers were as important as Tanks or DPS. Puller was actually a role in itself with its need for skill, sometimes requiring up to two players. Races and classes were offering a great variation in your experience of the game, from character creation, bringing a great level of involvement.
3-Social. The community and social aspect of EQ was as important as gameplay itself. You needed to make friends, you needed to talk to others, you needed to be part of the community to get past level 5. Transport (teleport, bind, buff), questing (information, help), gearing (player trade, information, help) were many social aspects beyond the obvious grouping where social interaction was needed. The absence of tutorial was reason enough to make you talk to others to simply know what to do! Getting to know people was part of the gameplay itself, and would keep you busy when you couldn’t find a group. All the tools other MMOs give you today to “ease” your game experience are killing the social aspect, dungeon finder being the worst. We were all sharing the same world so we had to care about each other; trains to zone unannounced would get you hated real fast. You had to be involved in the life of your server and make a good network to progress.
4-Game starts at level1. Leveling up in this game was hard from level 3. If it was your first character, getting to level 5 would probably take you 8 hours of play. But it was fun 8 hours, and that was the point of the all game. Getting to 50 was fun, challenging and with a lot of variety. There was a ton of content for most levels, with several places and dungeons to explore. You started going to dungeons at level 4-7 depending on the zone, and it was not easy there. Gearing yourself was as challenging as gathering experience, keeping you busy through the levels, making you explore the world. I know very few people who when they got to level 50 thought “I wish I could have rushed through all this to get here”. They didn’t think so because all the time to get there was made meaningful by the game, through meaningful gear/quest/world design/encounters with others/class progression.
5-Gear and Quest. Talked about in the point above, but both gear and quest had meaning. Quests were most of the time not for xp, they were for gear, gear that you would use for several levels, not until the next quest, and that was hard to get. It gave sense to the word “reward”. Quests were not everywhere, for everyone, and they were not a mean to level, they were more an end. You leveled to do a quest. It was very different from what quests are today and much more interesting, in my opinion. I remember a lot of quests in EQ because they led me to great adventure, cannot say that about most MMOs.
6-Death. Dying in EQ was harsh, you lost experience and your equipment would stay on your corpse, making you run naked to wherever you died. Both penalties may have been too much, but they forced you to learn the game, to improve, you did not want to die twice under the hand of the same mob. The all corpse run feature was helping build the community and penalties reward player to play well together. Death needs to be meaningful again in MMORPGs.
7-Not sacrifice immersion for accessibility. We do not need a tutorial over 10 levels, there shouldn’t be a tutorial anyway. EQ has a very short and sparse offline tutorial and yet thousands of players were able to play it. You should learn the basics of the game through the first 10 levels, but not through dumb quest, simply by playing and making errors, talking to others…The lack of map also made you learn the world you were living in. Today you know the map of the zone, not the zone. In EQ you would slowly learn the world, each zone while watching your printed map. MMO should have maps included, just don’t show me where me or the monster are on it, that I need to learn by myself. Same thing with monsters, give me an idea of the monster’s strength, not simply its level. To get the player involved you have to make him learn the world he’s playing in.
To sum things up, what EQ had and that MMO don’t have any more was a world design made so that the player would get immersed in the game, from the very start with a character creation system including character-life altering choices. A world design made so that the player would have to be involved in the game to progress, in terms of progression, social interaction and world exploration. A world design that challenges the player from day one while offering him meaningful rewards, accomplishments and progression to keep him going. I think those three words: involvement, immersion and meaningfulness are the core of any EQ player great stories and I sure hope they are written in big on EQNext developers design board.
I miss the Spectre mobs mostly at the Oasis in North Ro with the Sand Giants that catch you by supprise while your fighting! This is all Verant guys! They were bought out by SOE and the game really just turned into a slave to the grind from that point!
Originally posted by Xerathule I miss the Spectre mobs mostly at the Oasis in North Ro with the Sand Giants that catch you by supprise while your fighting! This is all Verant guys! They were bought out by SOE and the game really just turned into a slave to the grind from that point!
You do know that Smed was the president of Verant?
Something not completely addressed was the amount of player knowledge that you built up from playing and traveling on your feet:
Knowing a camp by name. Getting to said camp sometimes required invis plus invis undead at some point in between. Knowing where the false walls and traps were. Knowing the aggro distance of see invis mobs.
That kind of stuff didn't just add up to knowing your way around, it gave a cerain status the robe or staff you wore that everyone knew hadn't been attained easily.
Not a mention of combat length in the first two pages of specific EQ differences. Reading...
found in another thread a mention of "trash mobs" which is close to the length of combat. Although not directly, for example EQ itself had low level fodder that died in one hit.
Also mentioned trash loot, which is less frequent than I realized.
edit : I was the first to mention combat length. Can't help but feel it is significant. Would love to hear an alternate opinion.
Comments
LOL i can also imagine people now hearing TRAIN TO ZONE! and no one leaving but sitting and waiting to see the train >.<
I kind of miss that lol even though it was a pain in the butt.
To right man. In EQ getting to the level cap WAS the game.
EQ was inspired by dungeons and dragons and actually felt like a real world because of it. Aka immersion.
This is something every game since has failed at, especially DDO and Neverwinter....sadly.
Daoc pve was very simmilar to early EQ
Ac offered a huge imersive world too, though it was a more sandboxy game.
It's only around the launch of wow / eq2 / coh that mmos started getting all instancy
Of course more revent mmos are even more linear, on the rails and instanced than thoose though.
I hope eqn has no instancing at all, like the good old days.
I recently start playing EQ Classic, only Ruins of Kunark available server, and it has been such a blast I was really surprised. Totally addicted to the game again, and it’s got nothing to do with nostalgia, it’s all due to the fun this games gives me. Here’s why EQ Classic is so damn great and what over MMOs are missing in my humble opinion.
1- Roleplay. Nowadays, roleplay in MMO is housing, clothing and some emotes. In EQ roleplay was from character creation, where your choices had a big impact on who your character would be and how he would progress: good or evil race/class modifying your access to the world, religion that would further modify your character in the world, including starting city or equipment. Once in game, equipment was clearly separated by race-type (big, medium, and small) and doing quest in the dwarf city would give you small races equipment, no matter your race. Lots of monsters were linked to a faction and killing a type of monster had consequences. Quest required you to TALK to the NPC by writing key sentences, not push “next” button. When a monster casted Blind on you your screen would turn black, leaving you literally blind to what was happening, alcohol would affect your stats but also game appearance, charm, night vision different by race, and so on. Roleplay was not an option through some tools given to you, it was fully part of the world design with big consequences on your character. It involved you in the game world.
2-Races and Classes. Great variety of classes and races with starting stats that mattered. Where you decided to put your points during character creation would have a big impact on your character’s life, and could not be erased by equipment easily. Then, you had the all experience rate system that would balance class and races. You decide to roll an Ogre because they have the best stat and a stun resistance? Ok, but you will xp much slower than another race. Warrior gets no spell or life-saving skill like the Paladin or Shadowknight? True, but you don’t have an xp penalty. There was balance. Each class had a role and a different gameplay, with depth to it. Mezzers were as important as Tanks or DPS. Puller was actually a role in itself with its need for skill, sometimes requiring up to two players. Races and classes were offering a great variation in your experience of the game, from character creation, bringing a great level of involvement.
3-Social. The community and social aspect of EQ was as important as gameplay itself. You needed to make friends, you needed to talk to others, you needed to be part of the community to get past level 5. Transport (teleport, bind, buff), questing (information, help), gearing (player trade, information, help) were many social aspects beyond the obvious grouping where social interaction was needed. The absence of tutorial was reason enough to make you talk to others to simply know what to do! Getting to know people was part of the gameplay itself, and would keep you busy when you couldn’t find a group. All the tools other MMOs give you today to “ease” your game experience are killing the social aspect, dungeon finder being the worst. We were all sharing the same world so we had to care about each other; trains to zone unannounced would get you hated real fast. You had to be involved in the life of your server and make a good network to progress.
4-Game starts at level1. Leveling up in this game was hard from level 3. If it was your first character, getting to level 5 would probably take you 8 hours of play. But it was fun 8 hours, and that was the point of the all game. Getting to 50 was fun, challenging and with a lot of variety. There was a ton of content for most levels, with several places and dungeons to explore. You started going to dungeons at level 4-7 depending on the zone, and it was not easy there. Gearing yourself was as challenging as gathering experience, keeping you busy through the levels, making you explore the world. I know very few people who when they got to level 50 thought “I wish I could have rushed through all this to get here”. They didn’t think so because all the time to get there was made meaningful by the game, through meaningful gear/quest/world design/encounters with others/class progression.
5-Gear and Quest. Talked about in the point above, but both gear and quest had meaning. Quests were most of the time not for xp, they were for gear, gear that you would use for several levels, not until the next quest, and that was hard to get. It gave sense to the word “reward”. Quests were not everywhere, for everyone, and they were not a mean to level, they were more an end. You leveled to do a quest. It was very different from what quests are today and much more interesting, in my opinion. I remember a lot of quests in EQ because they led me to great adventure, cannot say that about most MMOs.
6-Death. Dying in EQ was harsh, you lost experience and your equipment would stay on your corpse, making you run naked to wherever you died. Both penalties may have been too much, but they forced you to learn the game, to improve, you did not want to die twice under the hand of the same mob. The all corpse run feature was helping build the community and penalties reward player to play well together. Death needs to be meaningful again in MMORPGs.
7-Not sacrifice immersion for accessibility. We do not need a tutorial over 10 levels, there shouldn’t be a tutorial anyway. EQ has a very short and sparse offline tutorial and yet thousands of players were able to play it. You should learn the basics of the game through the first 10 levels, but not through dumb quest, simply by playing and making errors, talking to others…The lack of map also made you learn the world you were living in. Today you know the map of the zone, not the zone. In EQ you would slowly learn the world, each zone while watching your printed map. MMO should have maps included, just don’t show me where me or the monster are on it, that I need to learn by myself. Same thing with monsters, give me an idea of the monster’s strength, not simply its level. To get the player involved you have to make him learn the world he’s playing in.
To sum things up, what EQ had and that MMO don’t have any more was a world design made so that the player would get immersed in the game, from the very start with a character creation system including character-life altering choices. A world design made so that the player would have to be involved in the game to progress, in terms of progression, social interaction and world exploration. A world design that challenges the player from day one while offering him meaningful rewards, accomplishments and progression to keep him going.I think those three words: involvement, immersion and meaningfulness are the core of any EQ player great stories and I sure hope they are written in big on EQNext developers design board.
You do know that Smed was the president of Verant?
Smed has always been SOE
http://www.silkyvenom.com/pages/devtracker/index.php?go=posts&get=thread&fromsite=1&id=51141
History of Everquest
http://otherworlds31279.yuku.com/topic/1208/Business-20-magazine-history-of-EverQuest
EQ2 fan sites
Knowing a camp by name. Getting to said camp sometimes required invis plus invis undead at some point in between. Knowing where the false walls and traps were. Knowing the aggro distance of see invis mobs.
That kind of stuff didn't just add up to knowing your way around, it gave a cerain status the robe or staff you wore that everyone knew hadn't been attained easily.
My youtube MMO gaming channel
Not a mention of combat length in the first two pages of specific EQ differences. Reading...
found in another thread a mention of "trash mobs" which is close to the length of combat. Although not directly, for example EQ itself had low level fodder that died in one hit.
Also mentioned trash loot, which is less frequent than I realized.
edit : I was the first to mention combat length. Can't help but feel it is significant. Would love to hear an alternate opinion.